Washington (AFP)

US health officials said Tuesday they expect the new coronavirus epidemic to spread to the United States, urging schools, businesses and local governments to consider precautionary measures such as the cancellation of public events.

"Ultimately, we expect to see a spread (of the epidemic) in this country," said Nancy Messonnier, a manager of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States.

"The question is no longer really whether it will happen, but rather when it will happen, and how many people in this country will fall seriously ill," she added.

These public statements, more alarmist than the previous ones, come at a time when the fear of a "pandemic", namely an epidemic of international magnitude, is intensifying. The disease now affects several countries outside of China, including Iran, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.

The Covid-19 epidemic has already infected more than 80,000 people worldwide, of which nearly 2,600 have died, mainly in China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

As there is no vaccine or medicine against the new coronavirus, non-pharmaceutical precautionary measures "will be the most important tools in our response to this virus," added Ms. Messonnier.

These measures should be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on the severity of the epidemic in each locality.

"For schools, one of the options could be to separate schoolchildren into smaller groups or, in the event of a severe pandemic, to close schools and set up online courses," said the CDC official.

"For adults, companies can replace face-to-face interviews with video and teleconferencing and offer more options for telecommuting (to their employees)," she said, adding that on a larger scale, cities may be forced to cancel crowded public events.

For their part, hospitals could decide to delay certain medical procedures and increase consultations by telephone.

Meanwhile, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it began its first randomized clinical trial on Tuesday to investigate the safety and efficacy of the antiviral remdesivir against Covid-19.

The first participant in this clinical trial is an American, repatriated after being in quarantine on the liner Diamond Princess in Japan.

Those responsible for the trial assured that it would be suitable to include participants from other locations in the United States and other countries. It could include up to 400 people and would include research on other treatments.

© 2020 AFP